"Nevertheless I did love you then, and have gone on nursing the feeling ever since, until I can keep it to myself no longer. But you are silent, Phyllis. Why do you not speak? I will not remember what you said just now; I will not take a refusal from you. Darling, darling, surely you love me, if only a little?"
"No, I do not love you," I answer, with downcast lids and flaming cheeks.
Silence falls upon my cruel words. His hand-clasp loosens, but still he does not let me altogether go; and, glancing up timidly, I see a face like and yet unlike the face I know—a face that is still and white, with lips that tremble slightly beneath the heavy fair mustache. A world of disappointed anguish darkens his blue eyes.
Seeing all this, and knowing myself its cause, my heart is touched and a keen pang darts through my breast. I press his hands with reassuring force as I go on hastily:—-
"But I like you, you will understand. I may not love you, but I like you very much indeed—better than any other man I ever met, except Roland and Billy, and he is only a boy." This is not a very clear or logical speech, but it does just as well: it brings the blood back to his face, and a smile to his lips, the light and fire to his eyes.
"Are you sure of that?" he asks, eagerly. "Are you certain, Phyllis?"
"Quite sure. But then I have never seen any men except Mr. Mangan, you know, and the curate, and Bobby De Vere, and—and one or two others."
"And these one or two others,"—jealously—"have I nothing to fear from them? Have you given them none of your thoughts?"
"Not one," return I, smiling up at him. The smile does more than I intend.
"Then you will marry me, Phyllis?" cries he, with renewed hope. "If you like me as you say, I will make you love me when you are once my own. No man could love as I do without creating some answering affection. Phyllis," he goes on, passionately, "look at me and say you believe all this. Oh, my life, my darling, how I have longed for you! How I have watched the hours that would bring me to your side! How I have hated the evenings that parted you from me! Say one little kind word to me to make me happy."